Forks in many roads of humanity right now. 

1. Those whose income includes payment from a government (hourly, salary, even welfare, EBT, etc.) could be seen as government agents as their livelihood is directly tied to payments  from the entity. 
Government employees/agents/benefactors take on lower risk in this case. 
2. Those whose income derives directly from We The People via services and products offered in the market. The only interaction with government is taxes.
3. While both may buy Bitcoin, I have a hunch that they use Bitcoin in extremely  different ways.


P.P-M.   969741

> the feudalism age was more of a temporary departure from our human nature of open trade and self-directed creativity

The important question to me then becomes: what caused that departure and how do we avoid it again?

I'm not sure that we are making progress back towards our nature at the moment. Indeed, it feels to me that we are heading away from human freedom and toward control and violence (even if the violence is mostly state-sponsored and controlled, rather than chaotic). But perhaps I am wrong about this.

I remember when Myers published Once in a Species. I meant to read it, but never got around to it. Thanks for the reminder!

Scoresby

 essay, which argues that a random mutation that lets humans appreciate novelty/rarity actually enabled trade and cooperation between groups of humans a hundred thousand years ago. In fact, preferring cooperation to zero-sum violence between tribes is possibly the single most important attribute that gave us an edge over neanderthals - we could live far more densely which allowed specialization in trades.

In that context, the feudalism age was more of a temporary departure from our human nature of open trade and self directed creativity. Perhaps we're just making progress back towards our nature of open markets and positive-sum trade.

the_stacker_muse

BooksAndArticles

Lodging for Wayfaring Men Book Club #1: Farber's First Essay

This reminds me of Jesse Myers's *Once in a Species* essay, which argues that a random mutation that lets humans appreciate novelty/rarity actually enabled trade and cooperation between groups of humans a hundred thousand years ago. In fact, preferring cooperation to zero-sum violence between tribes is possibly the single most important attribute that gave us an edge over neanderthals - we could live far more densely which allowed specialization in trades.

In that context, the feudalism age was more of a temporary departure from our human nature of open trade and self directed creativity. Perhaps we're just making progress back towards our nature of open markets and positive-sum trade.